Paul Rosenberg writes:
Progressives were "really really good on critiquing the free market", and "pretty decent" on articulating their desired goals, she told me. "But where we really really fall down is in the middle," by which she meant "the explaining, really of how the economy works".
AM: Ok, this seems right so far. Lefists have a lot to say about the free market, but very little understanding of how it works. Yes, yes yes… I know this was not what the author meant. What she meant was that leftists don’t have a good metaphor of how the economy works.
AM: Luckily:
"What's incredible about this is that suddenly we have kind of what the right has - a metaphor for what the economy is - it's a vehicle
AM: Sounds familiar (I wrote about it here). How does this work?
"The most fundamental thing we know about vehicles is that they have drivers. The idea of a whole bunch of unmanned vehicles on the road ... That's how you have crashes," she said. In short, this metaphor "suggests at the most basic level the economy requires control". It also quite naturally implies "going where you want to".
AM: So the economy is a car that we drive around? I don’t really think this gets progressives much closer to an understanding of how the economy actually works. It seems tailored to fit their ideology. A car, of course, demands a central planner/driver. I guess they could say the same about the right.
“The organic metaphor tells people to accept the economy as it is, to be passive, not to disturb it, to take a laissez faire attitude - leave it alone.”
AM: So how does this new metaphor measure up? 1. It’s not new – the left has always had the engine metaphor. But an engine is different than a car. A car is a single vehicle that travels around, whereas an engine is a system of interlocking parts. In the Keynsian story, the central planner is not a “driver”, but a mechanic. There are problems with this, but at least it sort of makes sense. This “vehicle” metaphor seems completely wrong.
2. The Engine metaphor is plausible – but it depends a lot on expert knowledge about the economic system, and the certainty that interventions can make things better. Engines don’t just start working on their own, they must be designed, tweaked etc…
3. The body is still a better metaphor. I think the article slightly misunderstands it. The idea with a body is that it is a “non-designed” super complex system. There is quite a lot that goes on inside a body that is self-regulating, and when we make interventions into the body, either through surgery or medication, we have to be very careful or else things will get worse.
Neo-cons love the body metaphor because it fits with their vision of society as an organic whole. this actually is used to justify inequality because like body parts everyone just has their role. The feet will never be the brain.
ReplyDeleteHM
I've got to throw down my under-educated 2 cents here.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that more often than not, it is the market that is interfering with the governing system's.
Lobbyists, subsidies and back room deals do more to augment the government than anything the government seems to be able to do to augment the market.
When are we going to seek balance, instead of this "market worship?"
And no, the economy is not like a car. It is like an economy.
Love-Vani: what do you mean by "augment the market"/"augment the government"?
ReplyDeleteGovernments certainly intervene frequently and heavily in how people buy and sell things. One can debate as to whether these interventions produce, on the whole, better or worse results. But what is obvious is that there a major effect.
On the other side of things, governments certainly respond to organized interests. But, these interests are not necessarily (a) business interests (take, for example, a union; or ACORN) and (b) not necessarily pro free market.
LV - you also say "the economy is not like a car, it's like an economy" - sure... no one is disputing that. The point is that sometimes metaphors or similes can be helpful in organizing ones thinking. But I think there metaphors that are more or less useful than others.
ReplyDeleteHey-Yo! Metaphors can help explain themes, I rarely find it helps with things that are as full of complexities like an/the economy. Placing metaphors on things like these, I find, generally serve mostly to oversimplify.
ReplyDeleteSure. The government doesn't respond ONLY to market forces. I don't see how this in anyways detracts from the market forces that do infringe on a government.
Here's another quote you could try on.
"Anyone who believes that infinite growth is possible from a finite resource is either a madman or a free market supporter."
Or one of my favorites.
"Corporation. n. An ingenious device that delivers individual wealth without also requiring individual responsibility."
Milton Friedman once wrote that "business corporations in general are not defenders of free enterprise. On the contrary, they are one of the chief sources of danger." What he meant was that they like corporate welfare, they love regulations that erect barriers to entry to their small business competitors, and they ultimately want monopoly. So, the argument that business influence necessarily represent "pro market" forces is not always correct. Crony capitalism is not a good thing. But it's not the fault of "markets" (people freely buying and selling), but of the interference of government. The fact is, government is big enough, politicians have enough discretion, and there are enough levers available to them to play a part in, and profit from croynism.
ReplyDelete